Memeorandum

April 17, 2008

Obama Balances The Scales Again

Obama really needs to recalibrate his sense of moral equivalence. Following his linkage of the Reverend Wright to his own grandmother and Geraldine Ferraro in his Philadelphia race speech, in last night's debate Obama again demonstrated his utter unwillingness to risk giving offense to his own side by pairing off an unrepentant Weatherman bomber with a US Senator; evidently he has run out of relatives and is reduced to pitching friends under the bus:

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: ...I want to give Senator Clinton a chance to respond, but first a
follow-up on this issue, the general theme of patriotism in your relationships. A gentleman named William Ayers, he was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol and other buildings. He's never apologized for that. And in fact, on 9/11 he was quoted in The New York Times saying, "I don't
regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."

An early organizing meeting for your state senate campaign was held at his house, and your campaign has said you are friendly. Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?

SEN. OBAMA: George, but this is an example of what I'm talking
about. This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.

And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing
somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn't make much sense, George.

The fact is, is that I'm also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who during his campaign once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions.

Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn's statements? Because I certainly don't agree with those either.

So this kind of game, in which anybody who I know, regardless of
how flimsy the relationship is, is somehow -- somehow their ideas
could be attributed to me -- I think the American people are smarter
than that. They're not going to suggest somehow that that is
reflective of my views, because it obviously isn't.

Well, let us know when Tom Coburn is hosting fundraisers for you. Why he would, after you caricatured him on national television, is a mystery, but maybe he is a real friend. Or was, anyway. More on Senate maverick Tom Coburn here and here.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully.The
more politically active black students.The foreign students.The
Chicanos.The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.We
smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets.At night,in the dorms,we
discussed neocolonialism,Franz Fanon,Eurocentrism,and patriarchy.When
we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos
so loud that the walls began to shake,we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints.We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure.We were alienated.

No careful decision to associate with young conservatives; I guess Tom Coburn is more interesting, or more useful, now.

Coburn is traditional conservative, opposing abortion except in rare cases to save the life
of the mother and advocating tax cuts and limited government.

On the death penalty, he said: "I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people
who take life."

He said he performed two abortions to save the lives of mothers who had congenital heart
disease, but opposes the procedure in cases of rape.

Compare that with Obama's "during his campaign [Coburn] once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions".

Seems fair enough to me.

MORE ON AYERS: The Politico provided lots of background last February on the Ayers/Obama connection. As to Obama's passing familiarity with Ayer's ideas, I like this:

As Bloomberg News reported recently, Obama and Ayers have crossed paths
repeatedly in the last decade. In 1997, Obama cited Ayers’ critique of
the juvenile justice system in a Chicago Tribune article on what
prominent Chicagoans were reading. He and Ayers served together on the
board of the Woods Fund of Chicago for three years starting in 1999. In
2001, Ayers also gave $200 to Obama’s state Senate reelection campaign.

This Hussein guy has a well-rounded background with a diversity of experiences that will serve this country well in a complex, globalized world where 99% of the earth's inhabitants understand that a lapel pin in not the equivalent to believing in a flag. He seems to have a solid understanding of the things most Americans consider bad, which makes him uniquely qualified to effect constructive change. Personally, I like new and better ideas, and if there were an affirmative case to be made for the other candidates I'd happily re-evaluate. btw: I hear young conservatives sit around a talk about how they would like to ban dancing -- it's out there on the Internet somewhere.

"This Hussein guy has a well-rounded background with a diversity of experiences that will serve this country well in a complex, globalized world where 99% of the earth's inhabitants" have never heard of Princeton, Harvard or Hawaii.

"who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from."

Red herring: "have not received official endorsement from"? Crux of the matter: "Who I know"

Posted by: ben | April 17, 2008 at 04:18 PM

True, but it is not just a red herring, it is pretty close to an outright lie. The only thing that techinically prevents it from being an outright lie is that fact that Mr. Ayers, as a private citizen, can't make an "official" endorsement (unless there his a 'former members of the Weather Underground' organization that Ayers is the leader of I guess). But Mr. Ayers has made the kind of endorsement that private citizens can make, which is giving his money to Obama directly to support his campaign.

It is the same kind of lie Obama tells everytime he initially gets called out on something. I never heard 'those words' from Rev. Wright (but I did hear controversial things). There was no co-ordination with Mr. Rezko on buying the house (but we did take a joint tour of the property before we each bought our portions of it).

ParseThis is one of the duller 97% of Democrats who have not yet realized that they are headed for an electoral rout in the Fall. Anyone who actually thinks this strange, rather creepy fraud is going to be elected president is in Dreamland. It's not going to be close, and the savvier party insiders already know it.

"When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake,we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints."

Because using an ashtray--rather than leaving burns in the carpet--and respecting fellow dorm residents--rather than waking them or interrupting their studies--are such stifling constraints. Priceless!

Forbes, don't you understand that that was merely one of the diverse experiences that so well equip him to deal with a nuanced, complex world in which 99% of the people have never heard the term "community organizer?"

Which says that Ayers is a decent guy, be he and Obama are both friends with Khalidi, a big time Palestinian activist, which calls into question Obama's 'best friend of Isrial' claims.

Oh, and buried in there is a tidbit about how the 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' political networks in Chicago work. Khalidi held a fundraiser for Obama at his house supporting his unsuccessful Congressional bid. The next year the Woods Foundation (the borad of which both Obama and Ayers were members of) gave a big grant to Khalidi's organization.

It's been a busy day and i've got another paper to write, so I'm going to cheat and c&p in a comment I left at Volokh:

Guys, let's simplify this:

Coburn: said he thought it ought to be a law --- passed by the Congress, signed by the President, and upheld by the Supreme Court --- that abortionists should be executed. Dumb? yes. Bloody unlikely? yes. Illegal? No.

Ayers: Supported and participated in the construction of a bomb that was going to be used to murder servicemen and civilian bystanders at a Fort Dix dance, but which went off early, so it only killed three people including his then girlfriend, and now says he doesn't regret it. Dumb? yes. Bloody unlikely? No, it happened. Illegal: exceedingly.

In other words, Coburn: political jackass. Ayers: accessory to murder, felonious murderer, and only by luck not a mass murderer.

Did Obama ever say last night, "I love this country"?
I notice that he could not say Wright does.
ISTM when Obama talks about the good things America does, it is about how America made his life story possible.

Whether he said it last night or not makes no difference. His every action since long before this campaign started says he doesn't. His actions speak louder than his words.

You know, I think that's true. I think he isn't running for President because he loves this country, but because he wants to change it.

My husband and I talked about this the other night, when we were watching American Idol (don't laugh!). Kristi Lee Cook sang Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American". I said it was a guaranteed vote-getter. My husband, a life-long Democrat, said it was simplistic and had been adopted as a Republican anthem.

I told him he was crazy, that a lot of people really just deeply love this country (without having to mention the 'in spite of it's flaws' qualifier). That every year I go to Cedar Point and they play that song during the laser light show and people LOVE IT. Of course, Kristi Lee Cook did receive a lot of votes and was not in the bottom for the only time this season.

I think Obama does not understand that love, that pride. I think he does not convey it. He doesn't understand why talking about Ayer's actions being 40 years old isn't enough. Why saying Wright saw the country as 'static' isn't enough.

He doesn't have to be jingoistic, but at the same time....
People choose life partners based on love, not because you know someone wants to change you.

I have an audiologist friend who tells me business is fantastic from the kids who've been listening to loud music for years.

Interesting tidbit. It used to be at college admissions that it was the farm kids back in the 70's and 80's that had hearing loss. Now we've got good tractor cabs and we better understand how noise damages hearing. Today they say it's the inner city kids banging away to too loud music that have the most loss.

It's a scam. V tech, Craig list, The Chinese, Rutgers, IMAS, Alaska. Like have I read this before, probably, but the idea of dreaming the future is for morons who should believe that all this happened before and dreaming isn't lucifer, really. Like someone really time traveled, right. Like, they'd be ready for that.

George died, lets see if they'll do it for real. Sudden death like making it.

If this guy were elected, can you imagine who's going to be appointed to the federal judiciary? Can you see the whole United Church of Christ congregation at a White House prayer breakfast? What kind of people do you expect will populate all the multitudinous Assistant Secretraryships and Assistant Directorships? Does he have even the remotest acquaintance in his past who is not in deep, deep left field? (Tom Coburn is too new a "friend" to count.")

Anyone posing such questions over the next six months will of course receive the ritual denunciation as a racist, but keep in mind that plenty of his goofball associates in the past have been white. It's a rainbow coalition of Wobblies and other assorted Bolsheviks.

I have an audiologist friend who tells me business is fantastic from the kids who've been listening to loud music for years.

Interesting tidbit. It used to be at college admissions that it was the farm kids back in the 70's and 80's that had hearing loss. Now we've got good tractor cabs and we better understand how noise damages hearing. Today they say it's the inner city kids banging away to too loud music that have the most loss.

"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully... ... We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure.We were alienated."

Well, there's your problem right there. You picked people carefully who would help you feel alienated. And as soon as you got what you wanted you jettisoned them for a new group of friends higher up the ladder after gaining credentials. Does anyone else see a pattern that should have been obvious a mile off here?

Just keep this in mind: a substantial plurality, perhaps even a majority, of the people who will vote in November aren't paying any attention at all right now, and they won't until after the conventions and Labor Day. Among that huge swath of people who don't start focusing on politics until that point there are very few who will be susceptible to whatever brand of snake oil this pompous ass is selling.

Now let me see here... He refuses to disassociate himeself from a white-hating (which must at least be rooted in some self loathing as he is technically more white than black), anti-American pastor - yet he is happy to throw his own (still living) grandmother under a bus when it suits him politically. He folds his hands when the National Anthem is played, with cameras rolling, instead of placing his hand over his heart to honor the country he purports to love so greatly... He wants to have tea with the nutbag in Iran who denies the holocaust while actively planning the next one... He associates with a radical terrorist who has never disavowed his violent acts against our country and compares him to a sitting U.S. Senator.

Uh-uh. Don't think so. Your own chickens are coming home to roost, Mr. Obama. You'll never sit in the Oval Office, nor will your wife be able to pontificate her grievances from Pennsylvania Avenue.

In 2001, the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit that describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, for which Khalidi’s wife, Mona, serves as president. The Fund provided a second grant to the AAAN for $35,000 in 2002.

(1) Obama begins working for Sidley Austin LLP (Chicago office) in 1988
(2) Bernardine Dohrn works for Sidley Austin LLP (Chicago office) from 1984-1988
(3) Bernardine Dohrn is Bill Ayers (of Weather Underground) wife
(4) Obama claims only limited familiarity with Ayers (http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=3FC289D8-3048-5C12-009AD5180C22FF0B)
(5) Yet it wouldn't be possible that Obama would have known Bernardine Dohrn beginning in 1988 when the two of them were working in the same law office, would it?

Sidley is a very large firm. In 1988 it was second only to Baker & McKenize in Chicago. It had literally hundreds of lawyers in its Chicago office spread over maybe 20 floors of space at First National Plaza.

Whilst I agree he probably did know Dohrn given their neighborhood, ahem...interests, but it can't be said for sure.

I'm coming way late to this thread, but I would just like to commend Charlie (Colorado) 5:28 PM for getting out the essential fact of Ayers's criminality--which the MSM conveniently ignores.

Right on, Charlie--

Ayers and his sidekick Bernadine Dohrn were facially guilty of felony murder when the antipersonnel bomb that they were building to prepare an attack on GIs at Fort Dix blew up, destroying a lovely Greenwich Village townhouse and killing three of their co-conspirators. The surviving felons had the immense good fortune that the NY DA at the time, Paul O'Dwyer, was a lefty sympathizer who lacked the stomach to prosecute youthful *idealists*.

Of course, there is no statute of limitations on murder. That no subsequent DA ever saw fit to pursue the matter, when Ayers & Dohrn flagrantly make an annual pilgrimage to the scene of their crime, speaks volumes about the Obama-like attitude of New York officialdom toward America.

Do I question the patriotism of the bicoastal academic-media-political class? Why not, pray tell?

"He seems to have a solid understanding of the things most Americans consider bad, which makes him uniquely qualified to effect constructive change." I like the way you put that. It highlights the differences between us very well. I would say that where it may make him uniquely qualified to effect constructive change Obama will have NO desire to make that change, because those things that most Americans consider bad are those things that he considers good.

They have not even mentioned Obama helped his church obtain over 8 million dollars from the state after they helped elect him. The money was to help poor people and the church used some of the money to buy the 1.65 million dallar house for the reverend.
The fact he is a central figure connected to the most corrupt political organization in the country Cook county also known as Crook county will also be in the news.
This guy is truly a beaut.

Coburn answered that "while abortion is not against the law now, if it were, states could use death penalty laws to punish the taking of innocent life."

"I believe when we take innocent life intentionally, except to save lives, that we are violating moral law," Coburn said. "Now, I understand what the law is. My hope would be that we would get back to a time when we recognize the value of life, and I think we're not."

Does anyone remember the lovely, pro-life words of Bernadine Dohrn, Bill Ayers´wife in 1970? In Flint, Michigan at the SDS-Weatherman conference, where SDS was destroyed by the Ayers/Dohrn terrorist faction, she enlighted us all with declaring Charles Manson a revolutionary hero for ¨sticking a fork in the pig´s belly¨. Pig in this case referring to the young murdered pregnant actress Sharon Tate. Dohrn/Ayers have never apologized for this. On Ayers website he declares himself the proud father of two children...should he and his piggie wife have had a fork stuck into them at some point? Hmmmm.